Just In: Iran Allegedly Tried to Hire Hitmen on Fiverr to Assassinate Trump

The bloodthirsty Iranian regime has assembled multiple “kill teams” to assassinate President Donald Trump over at least the last five years.

Mullahs in the recently decimated hardline Islamist regime have issued numerous fatwas against Trump — religious orders inciting Muslims to kill him — and tried to orchestrate his death through US-based hitmen.

“They are absolutely killers, like the mafia. They have a list of the people they want dead and they have dispatched many of their spies to arrange to kill them,” Yigal Carmon, a retired Israel Defense Forces colonel who is an expert on terrorism told The Post.

Two plots, both from 2024, were foiled but give a shocking insight into the lengths the regime was prepared to go to before US armed forces started their assault on Iran Feb. 28 and killed Ayatollah Khamenei and his henchmen.

In one, a spy was ordered by the regime to recruit a “kill team” and come up with a plot to assassinate Trump while he was still on the campaign trail. He recruited two US-based hitmen, who were both later caught.

The spy, Farhad Shakeri, said he was directed by his Iranian handlers to come up with a plan for the assassination of Trump, on October 7, 2024, according to court papers.

Shakeri indicated to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official that it “would cost a ‘huge’ amount of money. In response, IRGC Official said ‘we have already spent a lot of money … so the money’s not an issue,’” according to the documents from the trials of the hitmen.

The papers explain Shakeri understood to mean that the IRGC had previously spent a “significant sum” on efforts to murder Trump and “was willing to continue spending a lot of money in its attempt to procure [Trump]’s assassination.”

He was also told he had only seven days to carry out the plot. According to his interview with the FBI, he was told if he couldn’t carry it out his IRGC handler said it would stop the plan until after the 2024 election as they had assessed “[Trump] would lose the election and, afterward, it would be easier to assassinate” him.

Shakeri spoke to the FBI by phone from Tehran, the Iranian capital, where he was based. Although born in Afghanistan, he had been taken to the US as a child and served 14 years in prison on various crimes before being deported. It is there he made his criminal connections which allowed him to eventually recruit hitmen for the regime.

Shakeri had already engaged two hitmen, his old prison buddy Carlisle “Pop” Rivera and a man named Jonathan Loadholt, both New Yorkers. They were initially promised $100,000 to assassinate a different person, an anti-Iranian regime activist. However, they were caught before carrying out their plan.

Both men were found guilty of murder-for-hire, with Rivera sentenced to 15 years in prison in January. Loadholt is scheduled to be sentenced next month.

Shakeri was charged with murder-for-hire by the FBI in absentia, as he remained in Iran.

However, this week, US and Israeli forces said they took out the Tehran-based “mastermind” behind assassination attempts against Trump

Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) special forces unit charged with killing Trump — or both of them.

As recently as January, a month before US and Israeli strikes on the country, Iran issued a threat against Trump, broadcasting a picture of the commander-in-chief during the 2024 Butler rally assassination attempt — with the words “This time it will not miss the target.”

US investigators told Trump months after that assassination attempt they could not rule out Iran’s role, and noted then multiple “kill teams” were plotting his demise, according to reports

Iran has had Trump in its crosshairs since the US military killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020 on Trump’s orders.

Carmon explained the Iranians only work with their own nationals to plan and co-ordinate hits on enemies, saying “they do it with Iranians, not Americans,” but actually carrying out the hits can be done by any contract killer.

The second known plot against Trump was orchestrated by a Pakistani national was told he’d get up to $1 million if the hit was successful.

He was convicted Mar. 6 of terrorism and murder-for-hire in Brooklyn federal court.

A man’s hand on a napkin with objects representing an assassination plot: a target, crowd, buildings, and streets.

Merchant, who represented himself at trial, said the plot involved setting up a fake protest, hiring a local hit squad and stealing documents.

However, the “hitmen” he got turned out to be undercover FBI agents, according to court records.

“I was not wanting to do this so willingly,” Merchant said through an Urdu translator at his trial this week.

He claimed he was forced by IRGC leaders to go along with the plan to kill Trump and other US politicians, saying Iranian officials had threatened his family in Iran. He has another wife and family who are in Pakistan, according to court records.

Merchant said his handler in Tehran listed his targets as Trump, Joe Biden and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley.

Merchant allegedly moved various small objects on a hotel napkin as he explained the plan to the CS which involved hiring 25 people to conduct a fake protest as a “distraction” for the hit squad to strike their targets, court papers say.

He also stated that the “people who will be targeted are the ones who are hurting Pakistan and the world, [the] Muslim world. These are not normal people.”

Merchant said he had received “clarity from God to carry out his mission,” court papers say

Merchant allegedly used coded language related to his fake clothing business to designate his targets, writing “T-shirt” for “protest,” which he described as the “lightest work.”

The phrase “flannel shirt” would mean “stealing,” which was “heavier work.” The phrase “fleece jacket,” the heaviest work, would mean “the third task . . . commit the act of the game,” indicating murder. The phrase “denim jacket” referred to “sending money.”

“This man landed on American soil hoping to kill President Trump — instead, he was met with the might of American law enforcement,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement after his conviction.

Merchant faces up to life in prison when sentenced, the date of which has yet to be decided.

Asif Merchant came to the US to recruit a kill team and posed as a Pakistani clothing merchant, according to federal court documents.